I'm a strong believer in all things spiritual. I believe in signs and I really do believe that when someone dies there is a part of them that stays in this world.
Sometimes, when you look back closely at the time just before someone dies you can see that there are rarely coincidences.
About 3 weeks ago, Levi started to ask me, out of the blue, to go and visit my dad at the cemetery. In all honesty, it caught me off-guard. I talk about my dad all of the time, but we had never discussed the fact that he was at the cemetery or the fact that visiting was even an option...It has always been a private space for me so I kind of just blew off the conversation. But in usual Levi fashion, the conversation just kept creeping up. This past Sunday, I just couldn't ignore it anymore. We had somehow ended up at Sunday school 20 minutes early and just as I was about to turn in I heard a little voice say, "Mommy, I really want to go to visit your daddy today... Like now!" And just like that, I had run out of excuses. I parked in my usual spot, took a deep breath and introduced my two oldest sons to my dad. In a way, I have never felt like he doesn't know them because I feel him around me all of the time but in that moment introductions just felt right. Levi asked me lots of scientific questions about what happens when someone's body dies as if he somehow knew that the spirit was no longer there. I showed them how as Jews we leave rocks on the headstones instead of flowers. And then we subsequently left rocks and said hello to all of the other family members there. Later on, on the car ride home, Levi told me that he thought that when you die it is just darkness. I asked him why he thought that and told him that is not what I believe... I told him that I believe that when your body dies your soul goes to a place like Neverland, where you are always young and free like Peter Pan. To be honest, he looked at me like I was crazy but I stuck to my story and I always will. Because something greater than me guided us to the cemetery that day...
See, the last two and a half weeks I have watched my uncle die. At first, I had no idea he was dying...It was supposed to just be a surgery to remove a tiny bit of cancer... In my head, the surgery was supposed to be the easy part... The hard part would be next in the form of chemo, radiation, maybe some other form of treatment. That was the Cancer I was prepared for... The Cancer I know is one that f@&king sucks but it at least lets you show up for the fight. This cancer didn't even give my uncle a chance. But, it did give me a chance, a sort of gift. In the last week I have been given some amazing opportunities...I have been able to help guide my older cousins down this unbelievably hard path. I have sat beside my uncle who was halfway here and halfway there and was able to feel closer to my dad than I have in years. I have been able to break the silence for everyone with the presence of three little boys and I hope that I have been able to remind my aunt that we all have her back. Being a member of a club that no one wants to be in doesn't come with many perks... But over the last 9 years I have learned that there are little gifts all around us, this is a gift that was given to me that I have passed on again and again and today I will pass it on once more...
When my dad died a wise old sage told me that when you lose someone close you gain a lump. At first the lump is in your throat making it hard to swallow or even breathe. You will question it and hate it and just want it to go away. And the lump will forever change you. But over time the lump moves... sometimes it's in your heart...sometimes in your hand and eventually it finds a home at the bottom of your foot. You will always feel it there and although impossible to believe right now, you will start to feel nervous when you don't feel it enough anymore. But then low and behold, it will resurface somewhere you least expected it to be. On special days... Birthdays, holidays, weddings, anniversaries the lump moves... sometimes it moves to your elbow but other times it moves all the way up to your throat...after some time it will settle back in your foot... Believe it or not in a way you will come to love the lump...
Tonight the lump is in our throats, making it hard to breathe. So we will try to focus on the little gifts...the little signs that are all around us and we will take a breath...
xoxo chef a
xoxo chef a
